A man has been arrested after he claimed responsibility for starting a building fire in South Africa that killed 76 people while trying to get rid of the body of someone he had killed.
The man’s apparent confession came as a shock when he was testifying at an ongoing inquiry into the cause of the fire, which raged in a multi-storey building in downtown Johannesburg, the country’s biggests city, in August.
In a surprise development, he said he had strangled a man in the basement of the rundown apartment complex before setting his body on fire, according to South African media reports of the testimony.
Police said later they had arrested a 29-year-old man in connection with the fire after he had confessed to being involved in the fire at the inquiry.
The man, who was not named, was facing 76 counts of murder and 120 counts of attempted murder, and arson, police said in a statement.
The inquiry he was testifying at was announced by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in early September to look into the possible causes of the fire and is being overseen by a three-member panel headed by retired Constitutional Court judge Justice Sisi Khampepe. It is not a criminal proceeding and his confession was completely unexpected.
More than 80 other people were injured in the blaze, including many who sustained broken limbs and backs after jumping out of the building's windows to escape the fire.
